“His Favorite Things Mahi Al-hadia” Social Functions of Code Switching in Bilingual Children’s Conversations

This study explored the occurrence of code switching among six Arabic-English Saudi bilingual children living in the United States at the time of the study. A Qualitative research design, using three research instruments namely, parental questionnaire, language portraits, and recorded storytelling sessions, was conducted in order to investigate the social functions of code switching. The study adopted Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Markedness Model to examine better the social motivation behind code switching in children’s conversations. Overall, the findings revealed the participant’s dominant and preferred language to be English, and the switch to English was frequent to serve certain functions, such as to change the addressee, engage in interaction, make alignment, ask for translation, expand, invoke authority, and finish the conversation. Moreover, this study contributes to the current research on the Markedness Model among bilingual children by providing evidence for Myers-Scotton (1993) as marked and unmarked code switching was observed among the Arabic-English bilingual children. This study also agrees with previous studies (e.g., Bolonyai, 2005; Fuller, Elsman, & Self, 2007; Myers-Scotton, 2002) that argued that bilingual children are rational and social actors who choose a given code intentionally to achieve certain social goals in a given interaction.

Prevalence of Reading Difficulties in 9- to 10-Year Old Children in Sweden Born With Cleft Palate

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of reading difficulties in children born with cleft palate at ages 9 and 10 in Sweden. Design: Using a cross-sectional design, a parental questionnaire assessing dyslexia-like reading difficulties (Short Dyslexia Scale, SDS) was administered together with separate questions regarding background data. Participants: Families with a child born with overt cleft palate with or without cleft lip in 4 regions of Sweden. A total of 245 families were approached of which 138 families responded. Data from 136 (56%) were complete with information on cleft type and could be analyzed. Results: Twenty-two percent (95% CI, 15-30) of the whole study group displayed risk for dyslexic reading difficulties on the SDS corresponding to the 7th to 10th percentiles in the population. Children with cleft palate only had a significantly higher prevalence of reading difficulties (37%) compared to children with unilateral cleft palate (19%) and bilateral cleft palate (10%). The frequency of reading difficulties in participants with comorbidity was 32%. Among a subgroup with reported comorbidity in areas of attention, language, and learning problems, there was a 2.5 times higher risk of reading disability compared to participants without this reported comorbidity. Conclusion: The prevalence of reading difficulties in the cleft palate population was higher than in the general population. Results showed that co-occurring difficulties were common in the cleft group and that reading difficulties often appear together with other, co-occurring neurodevelopmental difficulties.

International Study of Movement Behaviors in the Early Years (SUNRISE): Results from SUNRISE Sweden’s Pilot and COVID-19 Study

The International Study of Movement Behaviors in the Early Years (SUNRISE) was initiated in response to the 2019 WHO guidelines for physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep in children aged 0–5 years. This Swedish pilot study aimed to: (i) assess the proportion of preschoolers meeting the guidelines, (ii) evaluate the feasibility of the methods for the SUNRISE study, and (iii) assess how movement behaviors have been affected in preschoolers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical activity and sleep (waist-worn ActiGraph); screen time and movement behaviors (parental questionnaire); motor skills (Ages and Stages Questionnaire); and executive functions (3 iPad games) were assessed in 100 Swedish preschoolers (n = 58 boys). There were 19.4% of preschoolers (n = 14) who met the WHO guidelines. The motor skill and executive function assessments were feasible; however, 20% refused to wear the ActiGraph overnight. Additionally, during the pandemic Swedish children’s physical activity, time spent outside on weekdays and weekend days, and screen time significantly increased (+53; +124; +68; +30min/day, respectively, all p-values ≤ 0.001). Methods for the SUNRISE study were feasible in a Swedish context; however, considerations to switch to a wrist-worn accelerometer should be made. Furthermore, children’s physical activity increased during the pandemic, which is likely due to how the rules/restrictions were implemented in Sweden.

Afrikaanse taalvariasie: Uitdagings vir regverdige meting van jong kinders se taal

Approximately 5% of children show a language delay (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness and Nye 2000), and there are indications that this figure is higher in South Africa, especially amongst very young children (Van der Linde, Swanepoel, Sommerville, Glascoe, Vinck and Louw 2016). There are no adequate instruments with which to ascertain which young Afrikaans-speaking children will require assistance to overcome future language-related academic problems. This article reports on the challenges experienced owing to Afrikaans language variation during the development of a parent questionnaire with which the language acquisition of young children can be measured. This questionnaire comprises questions on early developing communicative gestures, first words, and early grammatical constructions, and parents are requested to indicate on the list which gestures, words and constructions their child comprehends and/or produces. The length of the questionnaire needs to be contained, because the completion of the questionnaire should remain a realistic task for parents, also for those with low literacy levels. Decisions regarding the inclusion or exclusion on the questionnaire of the words found in specific varieties of Afrikaans are however often not straightforward. Existing language assessment instruments the world over typically discriminate against children who are not part of the dominant culture and language community. Given South Africa’s stained history with regard to the recognition of speakers of non-standardised language varieties (cf., e.g., Hendricks 2012; Williams 2016), the compiling of a valid parental questionnaire is non-negotiable. It is thus necessary to consider carefully which words should appear on the list, because a good parental questionnaire can contribute to culturally and linguistically fair language assessment of young Afrikaans-speaking children. Such a questionnaire will assist in identifying children who struggle to acquire their language and who need extra assistance in order for their language to improve sufficiently before the commencement of their school careers. That way, they will have a better chance of accessing the curriculum, of experiencing academic success, and of having a sufficiently long school career to realise their potential.

Sensory Abnormality and Quantitative Autism Traits in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder in an Epidemiological Population

Sensory abnormalities (SAs) are recognized features in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and a relationship between SAs and ASD traits is also suggested in general population. Our aims were to estimate the prevalence of SAs in three different settings, and to study the association between SAs and quantitative autism traits (QAT) using the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) and a parental questionnaire. In an epidemiological population of 8-year-old children (n = 4397), the prevalence of SAs was 8.3%, in an ASD sample (n = 28), 53.6%, and in a non-ASD sample (n = 4369), 8.0%, respectively. Tactile and auditory hypersensitivity predicted an ASD diagnosis. The ASSQ was able to differentiate children with and without SA. In conclusion, QAT level and SAs were associated in all study samples.

Quantifying Language Experience in Heritage Language Development

Variation in language experience is a key characteristic of heritage language development. To understand the impact of these varying experiences on children’s heritage language outcomes, researchers typically collate and quantify specific aspects of children’s language input, transforming or reducing them into other more general variables, such as language richness as a measure of input quality and amount of language exposure as a measure of input quantity. This chapter presents an overview of the most frequently used method of operationalizing language experience in bilingual language acquisition research, namely the parental questionnaire. It outlines some conceptual and practical issues surrounding parental questionnaires as a means of quantifying bilingual language experience as well as reviewing a number of questionnaires used in recent studies in more detail.

The Contributions of Informal Home Literacy Activities to Specific Higher-Level Comprehension Processes

This study shows that home literacy activities contribute to kindergarten children’s higher-level comprehension processes, namely knowledge integration and knowledge access. Kindergarten children completed measures assessing literacy and language skills and then their performances on these measures were correlated with home literacy activities, which were assessed via a parental questionnaire. Consistent with previous research, the results revealed that informal home literacy activities were positively related to language comprehension and vocabulary but not to letter-word decoding and phonemic decoding skills. The results also revealed that home literacy activities were positively related to knowledge integration and knowledge access, two strong predictors of language and reading comprehension. Finally, the present results suggest that the contributions that home literacy activities make to language comprehension are the same contributions that home literacy activities make to higher-level comprehension processes. In other words, the contributions that home literacy activities make to language comprehension are not independent of the contributions that home literacy activities make to higher-level comprehension processes.

A code-switching asymmetry in bilingual children: Code-switching from Dutch to Frisian requires more cognitive control than code-switching from Frisian to Dutch

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: Recent research suggests that cognitive control plays a role in code-switching, both in bilingual adults and in bilingual children. Code-switching would only require cognitive control, however, when speakers maintain some degree of separation between their two languages, not when they completely mix the lexicons and grammars of their languages. For Frisian–Dutch bilinguals, mixing of Dutch (majority language) into Frisian (minority language) is common, but mixing of Frisian into Dutch is not. Therefore, Frisian–Dutch bilinguals need to maintain some degree of language separation when they speak Dutch, but not when they speak Frisian, predicting that code-switching from Dutch to Frisian would affect cognitive control more than vice versa. Design/Methodology/Approach: Frisian–Dutch bilingual children aged 5 and 6 ( n = 104) completed a Flanker task. Information about frequency of code-switching from Dutch to Frisian and frequency of code-switching from Frisian to Dutch was obtained through a parental questionnaire. Data and Analysis: Multiple hierarchical regression analyses showed that frequency of code-switching from Dutch to Frisian significantly predicted performance on a Flanker task, but that frequency of code-switching from Frisian to Dutch did not. Findings/Conclusions: The results suggests that code-switching from Dutch to Frisian requires more cognitive control than code-switching from Frisian to Dutch. Originality: This is the first study that shows a code-switching asymmetry in the context of a minority–majority language pair. Significance/Implications: The study supports the hypothesis that code-switching requires more cognitive control when a bilingual speaker has to maintain some degree of language separation between her or his two languages.